Colin Hanks

Colin Lewes Hanks, born November 24, 1977, in Sacramento, California, is an American actor, filmmaker, and Broadway performer. The son of actor Tom Hanks and producer and actress Samantha Lewes, born Susan Jane Dillingham, Hanks grew up in Sacramento and attended Sacramento Country Day School before enrolling at Chapman University and later transferring to Loyola Marymount University, which he left without completing a degree.

Hanks first came to wider attention in 1999 when he was cast as Alex Whitmann in the WB science-fiction series Roswell, a role he held for the show's first two seasons with a brief appearance in the third. His film career gained momentum with the 2002 comedy Orange County, in which he played Shaun Brumder, a student attempting to gain admission to Stanford University after his guidance counselor submits the wrong transcript. He appeared alongside Jack Black and Schuyler Fisk in that film, and later appeared again with Black in the 2005 remake of King Kong, playing Black's assistant. In 2006, Hanks had a cameo in Black's Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny as a drunken fraternity brother.

His film work continued with three releases in 2008: Untraceable, The House Bunny, in which he played Oliver, the love interest of Anna Faris's character, and The Great Buck Howard, produced by his father and starring John Malkovich. That same year, Hanks also appeared in part eight of the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers as Lieutenant Hank Jones, and played Father Gill, a young Roman Catholic priest, in the second season of Mad Men. Additional film credits include Parkland (2013), in which he portrayed Dr. Malcolm Perry, Elvis & Nixon (2016), Nobody 2 (2025), and Nuremberg (2025).

In 2009, Hanks made his Broadway debut in Moisés Kaufman's play 33 Variations, performing alongside Jane Fonda. His work in that production earned him a Theatre World Award in 2009.

On television, Hanks starred as young detective Jack Bailey opposite Bradley Whitford in the 2010 Fox series The Good Guys. The following year, he joined the cast of Showtime's Dexter for its sixth season, portraying Travis Marshall, an art historian involved in a murderous apocalyptic cult opposite Edward James Olmos, a role that earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. His most acclaimed television performance came in the FX crime series Fargo, where he played Officer Gus Grimly across the 2014–2015 season, earning nominations for a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Critics' Choice Television Award. Subsequent main television roles include Greg Short on the CBS sitcom Life in Pieces from 2015 to 2019, Barry Lapidus in the Paramount+ miniseries The Offer in 2022, and Bob Broberg in Peacock's A Friend of the Family, also in 2022. From 2014 to 2021, he voiced the titular character on the web series Talking Tom & Friends.

Hanks also appeared as Alex Vreeke in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle in 2018, reprising the role in the 2019 sequel Jumanji: The Next Level. In 2019, he portrayed a young Fred Rogers on the Comedy Central series Drunk History.

Alongside his acting career, Hanks has worked as a documentary filmmaker. He began directing All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records in 2008, a project that received nearly $100,000 in Kickstarter funding and premiered at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, on March 17, 2015. He subsequently directed Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Our Friends) in 2017 and John Candy: I Like Me in 2025. He also directed a 30 for 30 short titled The Anti-Mascot, focused on the San Francisco Giants' Crazy Crab promotion in the 1980s.

In his personal life, Hanks became engaged to former New York publicist Samantha Bryant in June 2009, and the two married on May 8, 2010, in Los Angeles. They have two daughters, born in 2011 and 2013 respectively. Hanks has a sister, Elizabeth, and through his father's marriage to actress Rita Wilson, two younger half-brothers, Chester and Truman. He is a supporter of the San Francisco Giants, San Francisco 49ers, Sacramento Kings, Los Angeles Kings, and Liverpool FC, and served as the official Kevin and Bean Los Angeles Kings playoff correspondent during the 2011–12 and 2012–14 seasons.